Movie review: ‘Dead Man Tell No Tales’ non-stop fun

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May 22, 2017 at 12:40 PMMay 22, 2017 at 12:40 PM

Ed Symkus More Content Now

There’s not a great box office record for movies based on Disney rides. “The Country Bears” and “Tomorrowland” and “The Haunted Mansion” weren’t exactly blockbusters. But “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” sure was. Featuring Johnny Depp flouncing around in exaggerated slapstick as Captain Jack Sparrow, along with a ghostly and creepy fantasy element, a terrific, supporting cast, and comic action galore, the film was an immediate hit, and begat a sequel, another sequel, and yet another sequel.

So no one was caught off-guard that a fifth entry titled, after the colon, “Dead Men Tell no Tales,” was in the works. It again stars Depp and a bunch of previous regulars, the best of whom was and still is Geoffrey Rush as Captain Barbossa, who has lived and died, and been brought back to life in different films. There are also bountiful new characters to meet: The naive, but brave Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites), whose parents were mainstays of the earlier films; the fetching, smart, and feisty Carina (Kaya Scodelario), who is an astronomer, not a witch, as is believed by most of the cast; the fierce and frightening pirate ghost Captain Salazar (Javier Bardem), the film’s most complicated character, a righteous man when alive, now bent on revenge as a villainous spirit.

Practically everyone in the film, not just those listed above, but also the entire British Navy, is looking for something called the Trident of Poseidon, a magical object that can both reverse curses and give power over the seas to anyone who has it in their possession. But there’s a problem; it can only be found by following a map that no one can read.

On top of that, it seems that, for a variety of reasons (revenge has already been mentioned), almost everybody in the film is trying to get their hands around the throat of Captain Jack Sparrow. Well, he is a rapscallion. He’s introduced here, so drunk that he’s fallen asleep, after a heist, inside a vault in St. Martin. The wild set piece that follows gives new meaning to the term “bank robbery,” because Jack and his gang have actually stolen the whole bank, and are dragging it through the streets on horseback, with officials trying to catch them.

It’s just the first of many similar, yet refreshingly different incidents. This is a film that energetically jumps from one detailed, wild set piece to the next. Another involves Jack and Carina, both about to be executed across from each other in the town square, one by hanging, one courtesy of a guillotine, to the appreciative roar of the bloodthirsty townspeople. It begins with the “victims” taunting each other, and soon erupts into terrifically choreographed comic pandemonium.

Among the many things going for it, the film has no bloat, coming in at just over 2 hours; Depp is in full-out overacting mode, something he’s come to do well and with good humor; gimmicks include the ideas that Salazar and his ghostly crew can run on water but can’t step on dry land; there are fantastic big battle scenes on the ocean; funny dialogue is matched in quality by inventive sight gags; and there’s a small dose of emotionality (and a couple of cameos) involving relationships between parents and children that have been part of this franchise from the beginning

“Dead Men Tell no Tales” is almost non-stop fun, a welcome return to form that even some fans say kind of lost its way after the first two in the series. And there are two bonuses: One comes after the very last end credit. The other is due to the fact that a scheduling conflict got in the way of Keith Richards reprising his role as Jack Sparrow’s dad. Instead they got some other British bloke to briefly play the character of Uncle Jack: Paul McCartney.